At the start of the service, when Tom was staring at her, when he spoke as though no one else was listening, she was sure madness had found her at last. She had bitten the inside of her lip and screwed her hands into tight fists so she wouldn’t say anything, or go to him.
After Virginia’s outburst, when everyone was quiet, when she imagined the worst was over, Julia had relaxed. And it was then that her mouth had opened, all by itself, and she’d declared, loudly, ‘I think we should all just stick together.’
There was silence at first.
The pastor, who was probably thinking this was his worst funeral ever, who was probably just dying to get back to the pub, had stopped his sermon, smiled nicely and said, ‘What a lovely idea, Mrs Heath.’
Every single face had been a spotlight aimed at her; some faces kind, others amused, or shocked. Julia had burned with the shame of it. Rooted to the spot. Wishing she could sink into the cool silent earth. Not trusting her mouth, or mind, to behave.
Now, as she watches the coffin being lowered into the hole, there is a thick lump in her throat. She recalls her own mother’s burial. How she’d stood there dry-eyed. A little girl numb with shock. But she is crying now. Unable to stop, it seems, pressing tissues against her nose and eyes, as Bryant strokes her hair.
She never said goodbye to Moira. In fact, she’d been so angry with her mother for being irreparably fucked up, she’d hated her. Hated everything about her. But she views her childhood through a different lens now; one softened by the long overdue fall of tears, and it feels good to let this anger go.
She remembers the way her mother used to make hats for them out of silver foil and feathers she picked up in the garden. How she preferred questions that had no answers. How she adored ABBA, but changed the lyrics to all their songs. How she used castor oil for every ailment, thought she could understand what dogs were saying, loved all things paisley, and insisted on eating dessert before dinner. And one time, during an early ballet concert, Julia’s mother had stood up in the middle of the recital, as Julia performed awkward jetes on stage and declared loudly, ‘That’s my daughter. The pretty one in the middle.’
And cornflowers. That’s what else Julia remembers. Her mother’s favourite flower. Masses of them. On the coffin and around the grave and in the hands of Julia’s father. Their honest blue petals like drops of sea from a faraway country.
On the walk back to the car, Bryant tries to take Julia’s hand, but she pretends to adjust the strap on her handbag in order to keep some distance between them.
‘Tom’s performance was certainly entertaining. And yours wasn’t too bad either.’
‘Shut up, Bryant.’
He laughs. ‘Well, what kind of idiot behaves like that at a funeral? I really don’t know what you see in Tom, Julia, I mean apart from the hard body and good looks.’
‘Really? You don’t understand what I see in him?’ She stops walking and turns to face him. ‘So why did Tom say you like kissing men?’
He blushes a sudden deep scarlet and won’t meet her gaze. ‘What? I have no idea what Tom was going on about, I swear. So, have you changed your mind?’
She doesn’t need to ask what he’s talking about. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I’m still going.’
Barbara trudges up behind them, fanning her face with one of the memorial leaflets.
‘Guess what, Mum? Julia’s going to leave me.’ He looks like a little boy, petulant, pouting.
Barbara sighs. ‘Let her go, honey.’
It’s not the response Bryant was counting on, obviously, and he frowns. ‘I thought you’d be furious.’
‘Maybe once I would’ve been.’ Barbara pulls a hankie out of her purse and blows her nose. Her eyes are red from crying. She puts the hankie back in her purse and sighs. ‘I don’t think you should hold onto someone who doesn’t want to stay, Bryant.’
‘I bet you anything she’ll run straight into Tom’s arms.’
‘I won’t be running into anyone’s arms,’ Julia says.
‘Straight back to the city then, you’ve been dying to leave since you got here. The poor kids will have to traipse back and forth between the two houses.’
‘I’m not going back to the city either.’
‘But you hate it here.’
Julia shrugs. ‘Lovely has kind of grown on me.’ And surprisingly, it has. It was the last thing Julia expected to happen. But she appreciates how Lovely demands so little of its residents. It allows people to be themselves, without any pretence. And she likes that.
‘And where will you live?’
‘Mrs Fatori has that flat above the fruit shop.’
He looks up at the sky, which has darkened again.
Barbara rubs his shoulder. ‘Come on, honey. It’s time to let her go. Why don’t you tell her what inspired you to propose in the first place?’
Julia raises her eyebrows. ‘What’s this?’
Bryant’s face turns red.
‘Go on,’ Barbara urges.
‘No, it’ll come out all wrong.’
‘Just tell her.’
He chews the inside of his cheek for a moment, and then says, ‘I thought I could heal you. When Craig told me about your mum and how much you’d suffered, well, I just thought … You were so damn fragile. I mean I loved you, Julia, when I proposed. I just thought …’
Barbara gives Julia a sympathetic look. ‘He’s got a good heart, my boy. Just gets a bit lost sometimes.’
‘You married me to heal me?’ Julia feels a rush of anger.
‘No, I just told you, Julia. I married you because I loved you.’
The anger evaporates almost immediately and she finds the situation funny. All those years of being psychoanalysed, regressed, chanted over, mistaking his fussing for love. All the damn affirmations she’s written. But she can’t blame Bryant for her life. She surrendered the controls to him, years ago, willingly. It’s no good complaining now about the destination they’ve arrived at. And maybe this isn’t such a bad place to be anyway. She has the strength, finally, to start living her own life.
‘You know what, Bryant?’ she says. ‘Maybe you have healed me after all.’
At the exit to the cemetery, she hesitates. She should go straight home and gather her stuff, and tell the kids about the impending separation. But the road into town is darkened with clouds the colour of bitumen. And the wind pushes at her to go the other way.
So she lets the wind guide her this time. Left, towards the dairy farm, where a gentle rain is starting to fall.
Simon
I love this town. I love its starkness and honesty. I love its light. Although, I have to admit there was a time when I hated it enough to leave in a hurry. But now, from up here, the view is simply dazzling.
I watch Julia following Tom up Droop Hill. She’s a tiny dot of colour against a summer brown landscape, hurrying.
Look at the light pouring out of her heart, reaching for my brother. I know he can feel it, but he pretends not to notice. Perhaps he’s playing it cool; he imagines he’s learned the rules for love.
Although, he does slow a little for her, pausing at the gate to the dairy, but still not turning around, measuring his steps across the paddock, towards the dam. Once there, he sits on the edge and, with a pounding heart, throws rocks, feigning nonchalance, waiting for her.
Five minutes later she sits down beside him and draws circles in the dirt with her fingers.
They don’t look at each other. They don’t speak.
But observe that light, pouring out of their hearts and rushing to embrace the other. Listen to the crescendo of their notes soaring. Stravinsky would be challenged to write music like that.
A long roll of thunder echoes from one edge of the world to the other, like a massive wheel turning and both Julia and Tom look up at the sky. I smile down at them. There’s going to be a beauty of a storm when it hits. Exactly what this dried-up town needs.
I move in closer and whisper to Tom, kiss her. He twitches h
is right shoulder at me. But it will take more than that to get rid of me.
Julia clears her throat. ‘You’re really going to miss your dad, aren’t you?’
Tom nods. ‘But he’s still around. I can hear him.’
She goes back to drawing circles in the dirt as the rain freckles the dam and taps on their heads and shoulders.
Kiss her.
‘So,’ Tom says, a little too loudly. ‘Are you leaving Bryant?’
‘Yes.’ She turns to look at him. ‘I’m leaving.’
She’s encouraging you, I say. Kiss her, for God’s sake.
‘But not Lovely?’ Tom begins to panic.
‘No,’ she says. ‘Not Lovely.’
‘Good.’ He reaches across and picks up Julia’s right hand.
Julia’s colour loses a little of its sparkle. She takes her hand back. ‘But I really have to sort myself out first, Tom. With the kids. And I’ll need to get a job. There’s a lot I have to do before I could get involved with anyone.’
Oh, dear, I don’t like the way this is going. Kiss her anyway.
Tom closes his eyes for a minute. If Julia wasn’t there, he’d give me a piece of his mind. But he can’t, not without looking like an idiot. So he takes a deep breath. ‘I don’t think that’s a good enough reason for us to stay apart, Julia,’ he says. ‘You can hear how perfect we are for each other.’
‘I’m not denying it,’ she says. ‘In fact, a few times I thought it was going to drive me insane.’ She rubs at her ear. ‘But I still have things to sort out. Like I really need to get my hearing checked. And take Oscar to see someone.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with your son, Julia; he’s different, but still perfect. As for your hearing; it’s just the sound the world makes. If you listen to it, past the static and the ringing, and don’t be afraid of what you might hear, you’ll realise that the whole world is music. It’s a big symphony out there. And in here.’ He taps his head.
‘Even still,’ she says.
Oh, the living are so frustrating. Their narrow vision drives me crazy, it really does. They have no idea of their power; they live such small, safe, timid lives. When they are truly magnificent and huge and so filled with potential. They don’t need to measure their love out. They don’t need to hold back their love or energy. There is more available to them than atoms in the sky.
KISS HER, I scream at Tom, and he jumps in his skin.
He swats his hand, angrily, in front of his face, pretending to shoo a fly, and I laugh and start up a chant, kiss her, kiss her, kiss her.
His face goes all red. I smile at the power of a brother to annoy beyond the grave.
Tom takes the last stone and skims it hard across the surface of the water where the ripples scatter into raindrops. He doesn’t realise how much Julia needs him. He jumps to his feet. ‘Well, I have to finish mending the south fence,’ he says. ‘I want to have it done before this afternoon.’
Julia gets to her feet also. A space of only inches lies between them. It might as well be miles.
They gaze in opposite directions, as the rain whispers down.
Kiss her.
But I think Tom has had enough rejection for a while; it’s making him hold back. People think that hearts can only stand so much pain, but that’s not true, a heart grows stronger, truer, more beautiful with pain. The colours of the heart deepen. It is pain that transforms the heart not breaks it.
My focus is drawn away from the dairy and into town, where Joe is firing up the espresso machine. His colour is green like the shoots of new grass after rain. I whisper to him, Julia could run this café for you, while you’re in Italy. I see him nod slowly to himself as the idea forms in his mind.
Then to Bryant, driving away from the cemetery, sulking to his mother. She wraps him up in a smothering purple blanket of affection and tells him everything is going to be okay. You’ll find another woman to love, she says, but Bryant thinks that maybe this time he’ll be faithful to his heart and find a man to love.
Oscar sits in the back seat of the car, and winds down the window, and tastes drops of rain as they land on his tongue, and thinks he might offer his fly collection to his new friends the spiders in the pot plants in the shed. And he argues with his sister about what to call the puppy.
Charlie and Summer discuss names also, for their baby, who will come as a gift to them soon, a pure-souled boy with rare golden light and Down’s Syndrome.
The whole town is full of light and sound. Different colours. And different notes. Sometimes they clash; sometimes they make perfect harmony. It depends on the day. But as a group, they are connected. If only the silly buggers knew it and loved a bit more generously and indiscriminately. Well, I can’t really judge them, I suppose. When I was down there I couldn’t do any better.
And there’s Mother, exhausted in the kitchen, scolding the new puppy, who is actually Whicker, the old cattle dog, in a new body. She’s acting stern, trying to teach it to sit. But Whicker is bolder now and full of life. He won’t be a dog to cower. No sir. This time, he won’t take any nonsense from those cats.
‘Sit,’ she says, again, holding her index finger above his nose.
But something has changed in Mother since the funeral; breaking through the seams of her chest is a light — lilac blue and soft — this light hasn’t shone since she was a little girl, and it reaches out tentatively, like a toddler’s finger, to touch the world. And Whicker can sense it, and knows he can put it over her.
So he runs from the house, crashing open the screen door. And he sprints across the paddock to Tom and Julia, ignoring Mother’s call, sniffing at the ground excitedly, almost wagging the tail off his behind.
‘The new cattle dog,’ Tom says.
Julia smiles. ‘I know. I’ve got one too.’
The moment stretches, stretches, stretches, and then Julia reshoulders her handbag. ‘Well, I guess I better get going.’
‘Okay.’
Here we go again. I’m sure the opportunity will be lost. I’m about to shout at Tom, when Julia takes a quick step forward, up on her toes, and kisses Tom full on the lips. And they hold it there. Breath suspended. Right there. And the sudden eruption of light from their bodies illuminates the clouds and travels into town where Wilson, for a moment, forgets the cigarette he was about to light, and without knowing why, smiles.
Julia heads back towards town, to her children, with her face lifted to the rain.
Tom walks to the gate, to the back paddock, his spine as tall as the eucalypts that line the path, whistling the new Whicker to his side.
And there we will leave them.
Travelling in separate directions. Not perfect. Yet still joined.
Like all the other inhabitants of Lovely.
Like the rest of the world.
Like you.
And me.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Kingston for putting the colour in my world.
My warmest thanks goes to all at Murdoch books, especially Colette Vella who, to me, is the fairy godmother of all publishers; insightful, supportive, wise, with impeccable taste in red wine. Also huge thanks to Katrina O’Brien, Kate Fitzgerald and Natalie Winter for working their magic. To Christa Munns and Karen Ward, for having the eyes of an eagle.
To Clare Forster, Julie Capaldo, Doris Leadbetter, Jani Runci, Robbie Lane, Peter Bishop, Paddy O’Reilly, Mary Manning, thank you for your generosity, in sharing your knowledge, for your honest feedback, and for the encouragement to keep going. Lisa Boxhall, thank you for your kindness and encouragement when the path got rocky; you’re an angel.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Joel Becker and everyone at the Victorian Writers’ Centre for offering the wonderful mentorship with Clare Forster.
To Margaret and Jim Lane who encouraged my passion for books, even though I ignored everyone for hours.
Thank you to Gary Craig, Grant Connolly, Louise Hay and Kat Miller. Thank you Peter and Lauren Doyle of Haining Farm for givin
g me the tour and not laughing too much as I negotiated the piles of cow dung in my sparkly sandals. You’re both masters of the dairy world, so any errors in the book will be mine. To Larissa Lemon, a woman blessed with perfect posture, thank your for checking all the ballet details.
To the Italians for bringing good food and espresso to Melbourne; I’m forever grateful.
To the best writing buddy a girl can have, Steven O’Connor. Also thank you to Anne Brown.
To the friends who keep me sane: my mirror, Susanne Calman; meet you on the terrace, sweetie. To Barbara Kreilaus and Jenny Hanson; two angels. To Ange Wright, who has the rare photographic gift of making everyone look good. Dougal Robb, because encouragement sounds better with a Scottish accent and Lenford Walmington, who made those wicked Jamaican curries and left the neighbour’s goat in its paddock.
To my Pilates friends who never fail to brighten my week.
And thank you, finally, to Stuart Reece, a husband who had to endure too many horrible dinners in order for me to write. I hope you’re feeling better now.
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